Alan Sepinwall

I was encouraged that the character-driven third episode was stronger than the zombie action-heavy second, and perhaps the producers will be proven right--that the longer this saga goes on past these initial six episodes, the more it will set itself apart from the zombie canon.

Robert Bianco

Taken as a fright fest, pure and simple, Dead succeeds admirably well, capturing the terror and confusion of waking up in a world where you've gone from person to endangered-species zombie food overnight.

Linda Stasi

The zombies are truly scary and disgusting. The survivors are terrific characters, and the gore is enough for any lunatic to love. But no amount of love is going to make a flesh-rotting zombie as sexy as a blood-thirsty vampire.

Matthew Gilbert

The Walking Dead may depend more on suspense, desolate atmosphere, and creative storytelling than fine acting. The show takes a nightmare generally told in movies and opens it up for the medium of TV. I'm optimistic that Darabont & Co. will continue to find ways to make the characters interestingly human as they dodge death's slow, ruthless pursuit.

Brian Lowry

Although we've seen no shortage of zombies and post-apocalyptic stories, producer-writer-director Frank Darabont has deftly tackled the seemingly perilous task of adapting a comicbook about zombies into a viable episodic series.

Maureen Ryan

On the whole, I'd say The Walking Dead worth a look, no matter what your genre preferences, but horror aficionados are more likely to enjoy this intense, blood-spattered tale, which, like all AMC dramas, is about as aesthetically well-crafted as a TV show can be.

Alessandra Stanley

The television adaptation is surprisingly scary and remarkably good, a show that visually echoes the stylized comic-book aesthetic of the original and combines elegant suspense with gratifyingly crude and gruesome slasher-film gore.

Rob Owen

Jesse Hicks

The show, adapted from Robert Kirkman's comic book series, quickly moves past its familiar premise. It's about what happens after the apocalypse, in the struggle to remain human after society's collapse.

Jonathan Storm

It doesn't take a fanboy to appreciate the well-crafted AMC series, populated with capable, if lesser-known, actors, including Sarah Wayne Callies, who spent a couple of years running from less-apparent deadly threats on Fox's Prison Break.

Mary McNamara

The Walking Dead, like any good horror tale, still believes in the importance of monsters, perfectly balancing the struggle of basic human decency with those palsied four-in-the-morning moments when we are convinced that everyone around us is trying to eat us alive

Simon Abrams

In the first half of director-screenwriter Frank Darabont's impeccable pilot episode for AMC's new adaptation, you feel the weight of time passing in ways that Kirkman always struggles with. To say that Darabont has kicked his series off with a bang would be a serious understatement.

Heather Havrilesky

Nancy DeWolf Smith

What makes The Walking Dead so much more than a horror show is that it plays with theatrical grandeur, on a canvas that feels real, looks cinematic and has an orchestral score to match. For all its set pieces, however, Walking is most breathtaking in its small moments, in which the pain and glory of being human are conveyed with only the flick of a filmmaking wrist.